Kurds Seek to Create Third Faction in Syria

Fighters from the Kurdish YPG faction have attacked and killed six Syrian soldiers today, saying it was “retaliation” for three Kurds killed in a previous attack, and promising further moves in the Syrian military does not stop targeting Kurds.

The fighting reflects the ongoing struggle of Syria’s Kurdish minority to stay on the sidelines of the ongoing Syrian civil war and even establish themselves as a distinct third force outside of both rebel and regime.

Longstanding acrimony between the Assad regime and the Kurds had many rebels assuming they could count on their support. The Arab nationalist sentiments of the rebels, along with the Turkish government’s involvement in propping them up, has left the Kurds suspicious of them as well.

It will be difficult for the Kurds to maintain this sort of autonomy going forward, particularly as fighting is increasingly centered around Kurdistan and the surrounding area. With Turkey threatening unilateral attacks against Syrian Kurdistan, however, they may find themselves in an entirely distinct war of their own.

What we are seeing in Syria is a preview of the demise of the
Iranian regime as well.
The regime sees it too — though it looks the other way. But the writing is plainly on the wall.
It was put there with the blood of the Iranians killed while peacefully protesting the Ahmadinejad election. The shedding of their innocent blood started the Arab spring, and the shedding of far more Iranian blood will end it.
Such is the fate of Iran, sealed by the brutality of its regime in 2009.

El Tonno

Don't count on it. The Arab spring =/= The Persian spring. The Iraquization of Syria isn't likely to change much.

There may soon well be several ethnically cleansed and impoverished regions east of Iraq to which POTUS can make regular Freedom Visits in great fanfare (and maybe get his watch stolen). Yougoslavia Redux, with Turkey doing regular over-the-border bombing runs and the Iraq western provinces suddenly very much telling Maliki to fuck off because they wanna Sunni together.

jeff_davis

Partisans on both sides typically assert "Our side will win!", but without the capability to make it happen. Wishful thinking and boosterism won't work against "sticks and stones", and even less against tanks and attack helicopters.

The Iranian regime has the support of the Iranian people. The "peaceful" protests during the last election was the same sort of Western-sponsored subversion/destabilization/delegitimization that we see today in Syria. The attempt by the Western press to portray — ie propagandize — the Iranian opposition as representative of a majority of the Iranian people, may have convinced "patriotic" — ie gullible — Westerners, but never conformed to reality. So that attempt at regime change by subversion failed, and some of the Iranian "opposition" payed with their lives.

The same game is being played in Syria, where the minority nature of Assad's Alawite rule makes the government more vulnerable. But the bottom line is that Syria isn't Libya, that Russia and China will not fall for that trick again. There will be no Western air campaign in support of Saudi-funded Sunni mercenaries. And absent such direct Western military intervention, Assad's task is rather straightforward: when the "rebels" attack, Assad responds with his indisputably more capable security forces. The rebels are killed — encounter by encounter — until, tired of being killed, they give up — and Assad wins.

The Western "plan" as in Libya, was to get the fighting going, point at Assad and shriek "He's butchering his own people!!!", and to then send in Western air support. The "rebels", followed that script, phonied up all manner of atrocities to blame on Assad, shrieked "He's killing us, he's massacring innocents, we need air support!!", only to have the Russians and Chinese say, "Not this time." Assad holds on, the air attack doesn't come, the phony "atrocities" are proven to be phony, the air goes out of the anti-Assad bluster, and Assad proceeds with clean-up, while the West fumes.

But the West isn't through just yet, so the danger of a regional explosion from overreach and miscalculation is still with us.

Good luck.

08oo

Kurdish forces ??? Does the U.S. have Californian forces?

The Syrian government recently gave Kurdish Autonomy and the goverment brought food?
I guess the "Kurdish forces " were just identified as unknown armed terrorists and were attacked for tis reason.by a Syrian helicopter.

To interpret this as as "a distinct third force" is just a warmongers wish I guess.

persnipoles

Kurdistan is a huge area, stretching from Turkey to Northern Iran. Kurds have been 'trouble' for both Turkey and Iraq. An Iranian cabbie told me that 'Iran has never had a Kurdish problem,' because ~'they're also Persian.' I believe there is an extent to which they are a 'force' unto themselves, but now I'm wondering … maybe it'd be hard to persuade them to work for the West against Syria, after GHW Bush apparently betrayed them to Saddam Hussein. …wonder how many really joined-the-rebels this time.

08oo

Yes, Kurdistan is a huge area, but the Syrian part is by far the smallest one of them. I regard it as irrelevant and actually would communist PKK men rather see as friends of socialist Assad, than of Turkish Islamists. And just recently they got autonomy from Assad ! Attacking a liberator seems strange to me. The whole article above I regard as just another try to construct encouraging news to drive this war against Syria further. For me this is just war mongering propaganda. Yes here on antiwar.